hogso

Cannot believe the placing of Norway in the jury vote so far, shocker. Hopefully Finland can hang on to top 10, and they'll be in with a real shout I think.

Top 5, in order Finland Sweden Norway Israel Austria Let's goooo

Huuuuge Norway track, nailed on top 10.

Comfortably the worst entry thus far, near Irish levels of 'we really don't want to win again thanks' on display.

Mel in with a shout of the @rjw63 top totty award there?

I hope it does!

Oof. That had it all. Top 5.

For Italy, see my Cyprus comment

They'll still get that! All participating countries (plus a category known as 'the rest of the world' this year) get to vote weather their act made the final or not. Cyprus won't be able to reciprocate, though.

That is a really strong Cypriot entry...but I'm not sure how much appetite there is for votes from fans for what is just a guy singing. It'll be under scored I reckon.

Loving the calls for Poland as winner of the @rjw63 top totty award. Don't peek too soon guys, wait for Israel

Chance of top 10 for Poland there

Austria's is a great track, top 5, maybe not the winner as I had hoped due to the early spot in the running order

Here, we, go

Knock the wall down and rebuild it so it's straight.

I wonder if voters will have the appetite for voting for Ukraine again, I guess we'll find out.

Austria have drawn first performance for the final, with Sweden and Finland also in the first half of the show - bad news for them, as the winner generally comes from the second half.

Denmark, Greece, Romania, Iceland, Georgia and San Marino eliminated. Again, no great losses. Although it was only a pre recorded segment, I thought the UK entry sounded pretty dreadful. Hopefully some nerves and Mae can put in a better performance on the night. Think I'm going to be backing Austria for the win. Good track.

This felt like the slightly weaker of the semis to me. I think I'd pick Belguim, Cyprus, Poland, Australia, and the stand outs for me were Austria.

Ah yes, the good old luggage tag, stalwart of console bundles since, err...now?

5 for 5 through from my picks, nice. Malta, Ireland, Latvia, Azerbaijan and Netherlands eliminated. No great losses.

Serbia, Finland, Israel and of course Croatia my faves from that selection. Sweden sounds and looks like a winner, surely top 3 at least. Nailed on that I've probably just listed the 5 acts eliminated tonight then...

Semi final one kicks off in a few minutes.

Final Fantasy 2 done. There are some decent story beats which far surpass the first game, although the story is so influenced by star wars you're constantly thinking 'ohhh yeah, it's that bit'. Although it is as formative a game as the first, chocobo's show up, series enduring mobs debut, and then there's the start of the trend for deaths of party members. That's lots of deaths of party members... Tips for anyone playing it or chasing trophies and achievements - as mentioned previously, each action will gain xp for it, so weather it's using a sword, or a staff, or a certain spell, you'll increase from level one upto a maximum of 16. What I do love about the game is levelling a spell like Ultima and seeing it's progressively more impressive animation. Anyway, you might think if that's the case, you just keep attacking the early mobs to grind to sword level 16, or constantly use cure and replenish mp from Inn's used via the gil you earn in battle, right? Not so. Each enemy has a hidden battle level, meaning you can only level up to that level against them. So early mobs might be level 3, end game mobs might be level 12, bosses might be 16... Two easy ways around this though. White magics like cure will level up when used outside of battle, but the trophy won't ping when you hit 16. It will if you level a different magic in battle for the same character once cure has hit 16, though. As for a weapon up to level 16, the Blood Sword can be used to attack yourself and level that way. Your chars have the highest battle level, so it's a simple but time consuming cheese. The same weapon also makes any difficulty in the game a joke, as it will deal max damage if your chars strength is high enough (and the enemy has more than 9999 HP). My time outside the Jade Passage (penultimate dungeon) was 9:50. My final clear time was 13:14 which was all weapon level 16 grinding and trying to get the damn Iron Giant to spawn. All in, not a terrible game after all, and certainly better with the QoL features compared to the PS1 FF Origins version I first played. Total play time : 21:55 On to 3, the FF game I have by far the least familiarity with.

Tickets sorted this morning, very easy process, although limited choice at this stage of course. I'll be up in the gods. Once someone decides where and when a meet up is happening, I'll try and work it in to my travel plans. I intend to avoid the train at all costs, probably drive to Watford and tube it.